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tv   American Voices With Alicia Menendez  MSNBC  October 24, 2021 4:00pm-5:00pm PDT

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today. a new hour of "american voices" starts right now. ♪♪ hello, everyone. i'm aly sha menez dez. threats of violence against public servants. muslim americans who hold office has become a target of death threats from the right. she is here to tell me how she and her family are getting through. plus, inside the facebook papers. new details why the tech giant chose not to act. also ahead, first tx texas and now a copy cat bill beyond its borders. the next state posed to ban abortions. one of the producers of "civil war" will be here. she tells us how it adds to the conversation about race in america.
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the state's race for governor heads into its final stretch with election day just nine days away, the race is being defined by two factors: education and donald trump. both fiends of the republican parties drift into the land of lies and fear. terry mcauliffe is busy reminding his opponent of the ties to the former president. frames the stakes writing, mcauliffe highlighted youngkin's statements welcoming trump's endorsement, his opposition to vaccine or mask mandates and a support for election integrity. the strategy is playing out as a new poll shows the race at a virtual tie in a state typically leans blue. as the race tightens, youngkin continues to throw meat. he plans to ban race theory in schools.
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youngkin is searching for a solution to a problem that does not exist. this summer lauden county, virginia became ground zero for our nature's culture war of what is or what isn't taught in the classroom. parents showed up in droves speaking out against critical race theory and the policy addressing students by their preferred pronouns. heated debates have turned into threats against real life officials across the country. and now an elected prosecutor finds herself in the middle of a firestorm over the arrest of a father scuffling with deputies at a school board in june. his daughter reportedly was sexually assaulted at school. right wing media is stoking flames, accusing the prosecutor of targeting the father. wusa in washington reports that the prosecutor says deputies were unaware he was the father of an alleged school rape victim and our office did not target
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the father but accepted a referral from prosecution from the sheriff's office. right wing media seized on the story, bending the truth, radicalizing the far right. the prosecutor is now receiving death threats because of a smear campaign. that prosecuor joins us now. first i want to start with the threats that you are receiving. how did a referral for prosecution from the sheriffs office turn into this conspiracy? >> it definitely was an interesting turn of events. as everybody knows, the prosecutor's office does not investigate cases. that comes from law enforcement. the sheriffs office put together the case after the incident where there was a physical altercation between the man that was arrested as well as law enforcement officers. they chose then to charge him with two misdemeanor offenses, obstruction of justice as well as indicating the fact that he
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had not complied with their directives. that was referred to as before we ever even knew about the incident with his daughter. so we took forward that case. it was presented to us based on affidavits and critical complaints sworn under oath by the officers. so we have to accept it as being the truth, which we did and we went forward on that prosecution because of the actions within the board room which if you have ever saw the video, it has the hint of the insurrection on january 6th as far as the mob mentality, the heated rhetoric. it just was a very unsafe situation that the officers found themselves in, and they had to create some opportunity for calmness. >> we are seeing this vitreal aimed at local elected officials across the country. what is it like being an elected official in this current political climate? >> people -- i'll speak for myself. when i was voted into office, it was one of the most amazing
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things because i was representative of our community. i'm an immigrant. i'm of the muslim faith. i was the first woman elected into this office. all of the great things indicate the following, that we are representative of our community, which is veidy veers. what happened is the right wing has taken those differences and now is pitting them against their -- how could i best way it? they're pitting them against all the individuals they are trying to rile up for the elections. what's happening is these individuals planned or not planned, i don't know, but they are now taking it to the extreme where there are death threats being made. we saw that within our school board member where she resigned this past week because of the death threats to herself and her family. those death threats now are directed at myself, and that is just not acceptable. this is america. this is law and worder and a rule of law country. that's what we are always
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expected to have in lauden county. and this infiltration of these outsiders has really come into being very divisive of our community and it is threatening the very fiber of our safety. >> the republican running for governor in your state called you out at a campaign rally this week embracing the narrative that led to the threats against group. your response to him? >> for starters, it seems very convenient that he is calling out a democrat who has nothing to do with the investigation, but you don't call out the sheriff who is a republican who is in charge of the investigation and who is at the core of all these decisions? that's the political climate he's created. he needs to understand that we cannot have violence being encouraged in our communities. we cannot have that. and we cannot have that from a leader because if that is how he is going to lead, he should never hold office because what
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you are doing is making it okay for people to harm one another or to intimidate or to look into situations where what they're going to do is they're going to take safety and throw it to the wind. that's not leadership. and he should definitely never be coming out of his mouth. why hasn't he come out and indicated that, you know what, i'm going to renounce the fact that these threats are happening to our elected leaders. why hasn't that happened? that's what a true leader does. that's the point that's very offensive. >> lauden county attorney, thank you so much. it is not just virginia, school board meetings unfolding in towns across america. npr spoke to educators across the country whiting, quote, all of them told similar stories, being yelled at in meeting, receiving threatening letters, being followed to their cars, being photographed or filmed. the radicalization of the gop, national correspondent for "politico," pretty wood row
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spawn and clint watts. he's also a distinguished research fellow. good to see you both. clint, i just listed off some very troubling situations that school members have been dealing with. last week i spoke with a florida school board member who experienced protests outside of her home. what do you make of these rise -- the rise of threats against these school board members who are in some cases are just volunteers trying to serve their community. >> alicia, since january 6th it's gone from national to local. the problem is these are the most vulnerable americans who are doing things for the smallest amount of resources, be it money or even voluntarily. i think the saddest thing about this country is these people are volunteers. they're representing their local community and trying to do what's best for them at a local level. across the country, if you are a health care worker, an elected official, a school board member, you are being targeted. but it is largely about race,
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religion and whether you are a man or a woman. you see this almost continuously. the far right it is white and male. and if you go into their chat rooms and their social media feeds, if you watch what they're doing in person now, oftentimes showing up at these locations in protests, behind the scenes it is a unified effort to free the administrative state not at the federal level anymore but at the local level. >> i know this is your old beat, but an old beat is never behind us when you talk to federal officials who are contending with these violence, with these threats. what are you hearing from them about their concerns, about the way in which what was once national has become hyper local. >> one large concern that i see throughout federal and state and local law enforcement is concerns about the level of intelligence that these folks have regarding the way that far right threats are metastasizing. after the january 6th attack on
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the capital, there was a mass best of your knowledging of conspiratorial, ultra far right elements from all of the mainstream social media networks, networks that had been sort of trying beforehand went even further. on the one hand, of course, that makes it harder for these extremists to mobilize. on the other hand, however, it moved them to platforms and networks that law enforcement officials just aren't as familiar with. many switched to encrypted channels, to ways of communicating with each other that became nonpublic rather than public. and a result is that law enforcement officers and people in the intelligence space who are trying to figure out where these dangers might materialize have a lot less visibility than they did prior to january 6th. they're trying to play catchup. so far fortunately, things haven't been worse than they are right now. but it's still sort of a strange, brave new world of challenges and unpredictability for law enforcement when it comes to this particular threat.
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>> you brought up january 6th, and i do want to ask you, jeffrey clark expected to testify before the committee on friday. the senate judiciary report released this month outlines his role to overturn the 2020 election. what kind of questions can clark expect from lawmakers, betsy? >> clark is perhaps the biggest interview that the select committee has had yet that we know about because he actually participated or tried to participate in trump's efforts to get these state legislatures to work to overturn election results in their states. the questions from the select committee will likely include who were you working with, what did you think was going to happen, were there other people in the doj helping you? were there other lawyers? they will ask about congressman scott perry who played a role in bringing jeff clark into the white house's inner circle.
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they want to know were there any other members of the congress playing a role in the leadup to january 6th to try to lay the legal foundation for reversing the outcome of that election. they will have so many questions. it is the first time clark has answered questions under oath from lawmakers since january 6th happened. i can't overstate how big a deal it is. >> one of the things that is interesting about what we're going to watch unfold in these hearings is that part of it is about accountability. part of it is about understanding what happened so that it never happens again. as the curtain is pulled back, as we have a greater understanding of what transpired, do you think that any of that impacts what we are seeing locally? do you think there are people who have been ignited by what has happened on the national stage? we're going to watch what happens and all of a sudden change their minds? i mean, how does that information trickle down? >> alicia, in short, it does
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not. it will have literally no impact. the people that believe the election was stolen still believe that. they know it is not correct or don't want to believe that it is correct. when these theories happen, we will learn a lot. and the important part, my frustration is that everyone has beat up on the law enforcement that was there that day, the fbi, the dod's response, but ultimately it came down to what happened on the lawn that day, which was president trump directed people towards the capital, which incited the entire mob. they have already convinced themselves and they will hear nothing else because in the ecosystem of social media they listen to, on the news channels they listen to, right now they hear a total opposite perception. i think that's the real danger moving forward is we are set up for another coup that could happen at any moment, and it could be at the federal level, but more likely at a state or
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local level where we will see this play out overtime. >> all right. that brings us to the facebook papers. next, new details about what the new about its impact in developing countries and how they failed to act. plus, the fight over abortion access. it is going beyond texas. the new state planning to impose a near total ban. but first to richard liu standing by with a look at the other stories we are watching this hour. >> so breaking news. we start just in a possibly sign of progress, nancy pelosi is hoping to hold a vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill wednesday. but we're hearing also that vote could still change if there is no deal on the reconciliation bill. that is why president biden spent sunday meeting with senate majority leader chuck schumer and senator joe manchin in delaware. before leaving to europe for a climate summit this week. protesters tried to storm
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barclays center ahead of the nets opener. they rushed the barricades but did not get in. they were protesting new york vaccines vaccine and showing support for kyrie irving who is sitting out because of his refusal to get vaccinated. dr. fauci saying vaccines for kids could be out. reviewing pfizer's application for authorizing its two dose vaccine. more "american voices" right after this break. ces" right after this break (sfx: continued vehicle calamity.) just think, he'll be driving for real soon. every new chevy equinox comes standard with chevy safety assist, including automatic emergency braking. find new peace of mind. find new roads. chevrolet. discomfort back there? instead of using aloe,
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trick or treat. trick or treat. give me something good to eat. [ children chanting ] trick or treat. [ sirens blaring ] i want to take his mask off... and see the life leave his eyes. [ eerie music playing ] trick or treat. facebook under fire as new documents reveal how the social media platform promoted radical content to millions worldwide. thousands of pages provided by whistleblower francis hogan show facebook users falling into extremist rabbit holes pushed by the companies own algorithms. mark zuckerberg could face legal
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liability for his role. the d.c. attorney general named him in a privacy lawsuit, saying today facebook has not been cleared from capital riot investigation. >> our community identified facebook and some other platforms as important to our investigation, but at this point, we have not made a decision one way or the other on facebook's role. >> joining me now, author of "an ugly truth: inside facebook's battle for domination" and also senior reporter at "the verge." what were internal researchers learning about the harm that was being done to users? >> well, as these documents show and there is going to be a lot more coming out over the next couple of weeks, facebook knows that its algorithms can push
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people into extremist rabbit holes, like you said. they know they could reinforce people's worst tendencies. i think what we have seen from some of these stories is it's especially true in markets where it doesn't make the most money but has huge influence still. >> cecilia, you have written about this. of course this is bigger than a pr crisis. many people would contend it is a threat to democracy. but on the pr piece of this, why wasn't the company prepared for this kind of reckoning? >> i think that facebook is accustomed to being under the spotlight, scrutinized by government officials and the media. they didn't expect a whistleblower, a former employee to come out with thousands of pages of documents that show in great detail how the company decided in many cases not to heed the warnings, as you have mentioned, as well as great
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detail of how the system works. i think that's been really revelatory with these documents, to show how groups, the like buttons, pages, the recommendation engine in itself, which is the algorithm, how it is not just people posting harmful content, it is the system that is making it worse, the technology that's making it worse. so right now i think this is another level of scrutiny that the company did not expect. and they're taking a very defiant tone. >> especially because so many people don't realize there is an algorithm. they don't realize they're being pushed toward something. it feels like an organic experience. facebook is now a global entity. "the new york times" reporting facebook dedicates 87% of time spent identifying misinformation to the united states, despite india having millions more users. explain then how facebook's exponential growth worldwide has made this problem even worse, even more complicated.
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>> yeah. i mean, facebook's growth pattern has not sped -- slowed down at all, even though it's on safety precautions and the guard rails it puts in police station ( place have not caught up with the growth. not only do they have many more millions of users in india, for example, india has 22 languages and they have so few people on the ground there who speak those 22 languages. it is a great example of how -- we saw this in myanmar, philippines, et cetera. a lot of these emerging markets, facebook wanted to get there first to be there with either a cheap or free service to get people online and using facebook at their gateway. they didn't think, nor did they prepare for the fact that their platform would be used in many cases for this information and hate speech, which was the case with the story we wrote today in india where absolutely more warning signs about india being a big problem with massive, huge
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groups that spread disinformation and also anti-muslim sentiment. it is a great case study, a frightening case study revealed in these papers. >> it brings the question of accountability. facebook has not been absolved of whatever role it played in the january 6th insurrection. one of many attempts to hold facebook accountable. what is your sense of what it would take to actually force them to change? >> i mean, i think it has to be many things at once. i don't think it is going to be one thing. there is no sort of silver bullet. the change won't come from within, that's for sure. mark zuckerberg is clear he believes they're on the right course and history in the long run will judge facebook correctly and well as being an impactful platform. as far as accountability, it will have to be on the outside because there are no regulations in the u.s. so it would have to be
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combination of regulation, liability through lawsuits as well as potentially consumer side of it. >> alex, i want you to pick from that what you think as most likely and the chances we see some kind of federal regulation for facebook on their social media platforms. >> i think the chances of u.s. federal legalization on any of this stuff related to social media any time soon is honestly extremely small. i think we could tell from the past congressional hearings that have been happening that lawmakers are still just starting to understand this stuff and it is also not at the top of their priority list. we have a lot of stuff going on in this country, obviously. facebook has already said we welcome regulation. in some areas, right. they would like to set the terms for that. it can often even trench already large companies and hurt smaller companies. there is a side effect where regulation could help facebook retain its power, so to speak because they have the resources
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to abide whatever it is. but being liable for whatever your algorithms put out into the world is interesting. i think that's something that facebook would probably be welcome to looking at. but, again, that's a thorny issue because the all kba rhythms promote good stef as well as bad. how do you take the trade off there? >> thank you so much for walking us through this. next the texas trend is spreading. the new state planning to ban abortion inside its borders skblrchlgts plus, the 150-year-old conversation that america cannot seem to shake. one of the producers of a new documentary on the civil war joins me ahead of tonight's premier. emier. certified from headlamp to tailpipe. that's certified head turns. and it's all backed by our unlimited mileage warranty. that means unlimited peace of mind.
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the battle over reproductive rights getting fast tracked in the supreme court. the nation's highest court will begin to hear oral arguments next week and challenges to texas's six-week ban. but the court says the law will
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remain in effect in the meantime. justice soto mayor issued a scathing dissent. she wrote, quote, i cannot capture the totality of the harm in these pages. as these excerpts illustrate, the state empowered by this court's inaction as so thoroughly chilled the exercise of the right exercised in row as to merely suspend within its border the straight access to other states. the impact is catastrophic. and that catastrophic impact is extending beyond texas. lawmakers in arkansas expect to introduce a nearly identical bill this week. in december, supreme court is expected to hear arguments against a mississippi law that directly challenges roe v. wade. senator elizabeth warren not optimistic about how the court will rule. >> the court has signalled 40 different ways that it is an extremist court, out of step with the american people and that it's willing to line up and
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take a shot at roe v. wade. now, whether they will get rid of it entirely or just let the states continue to chip at it. come on. they have given us every possible signal: for me, what that means is it is time for congress to step up. >> this loss could also turn a miscarriage into a double tragedy. one woman was convicted of manslaughter for having a miscarriage. that's just one of many cases of that nature. michelle goldberg joins me now. michelle, walk us through this. a medical examiner cited the woman's drug use as one of several medical conditions. there was also congenital abnormality, placental an rupgs. how did this lead to a manslaughter conviction? >> this woman, 19 at the time, was 17 weeks pregnant. she had a miscarriage at home. she went to the hospital and admitted to hospital workers
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that she had used drugs and they then called the police and she ended up being arrested for manslaughter. even at her trial, the witness for the prosecution admitted to they couldn't definitively say that it was drug use that had caused this miscarriage. there were these other factors as you mentioned. nevertheless, she was convicted, convicted very quickly in a one day trial and sentenced to four years in prison. what we've been seeing over the last several years has been attempts to write the concept of fetal personhood into law. you sometimes see this in the aftermath of an take on a pregnant woman. there will be then an attempt to create kind of a separate category of crime called fetus cide. it is protection for pregnant woman so when a pregnant woman is assaulted and loses her
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pregnancy, that becomes the mechanism for justice. what we see routinely is these laws are turned against women themselves. you also see, and this is what happened in oklahoma courts that have redefined child negligent statutes to include embryos and fetuses. and, so, you have this situation where many, many women, thousands of women have been prosecuted, have been arrested and prosecuted for things that they do while pregnant. you know, often drug use. sometimes extraordinarily minor prescription drug use. you know, there was a kind of infamous case in alabama where a woman on two separate occasions took half of a valium while she was pregnant and was arrested and had her child taken away from her. now, most of the time, woman who explicitly seek abortions are protected because of roe v. wade, but, you know, as soon as
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roe v. wade falls, that explicit protection ends. and i think what you can see in these cases is there is a real willingness among prosecutors to go after women for their pregnancy outcomes. >> just to underline a point that you made, michelle, this is not anecdotal. in your research, you found over 1,200 cases of this happening. >> the national association -- i'm sorry. national advocates for pregnant women has been tracking this since 1973. and they found several hundred, i believe, between 1973 and 2005. and then a huge uptick from 2006 to the present. >> right. underscores your point about how that tracks, then, with the way in which this has been approached. i want to ask you, though, how much of a role did the lack of access to reproductive care play in these cases? is there a corollary? >> well, there is definitely a corollary in the brittney p.
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case in this case in oklahoma that we're talking about. she told investigators both that when she became pregnant, she didn't know if she wanted to keep the pregnancy, that she had no idea how to obtain an abortion, that she had no prenatal care of any kind. and, so, you know, so you can sort of see obviously that there is a connection. and i think we see, you know, america won't be -- if roe v. wade falls, america won't be the first country to criminalize abortion, certain parts of america won't be the first parts of the country, won't be the first places where abortion is criminalized. i have recorded on many countries where abortion is illegal. and very often, you see women who have either had miscarriages going to prison because it is very often difficult to prove what causes the end of a
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pregnancy. >> michelle goldberg, thank you for following the story. thank you for being with us as always skblrchlgts next, the texas principal at the center of a critical race theory firestorm. why he was suspended from his job and how he is fighting back. and later, this debate goes all the way back to the civil war. producer of the new document joins us to talk about it. n war joins us to talk about it. r joins us to talk about it. y joins us to talk about it. us to. joins us to talk about it. my mother passed away. after taking care of them, i knew that i really wanted to become a nurse. amazon helped me with training and tuition. today, i'm a medical assistant and i'm studying to become a registered nurse. in filipino: you'll always be in my heart. there is no place like home y'all! and these people know that there is no place like wayfair. i never thought i'd buy a pink velvet sofa,
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a principal fighting to get his job back. he's accused of promoting critical race theory, a buzz word for parents and politicians uncomfortable with america's history of racism and discrimination. nbc's antonia hilton has more. >> reporter: at the center of a national fight as he prepares to defend himself in a public hearing next month in texas. >> i would be lying if i told you that it didn't pain me to not be with the students that i typically get to serve each day. >> reporter: since late august, he's been suspended from his job as the first black principal of texas's majority white high school. after accusations he was pushing critical race theory or crt on students. texas is one of eight states with new laws banning the teaching of critical race theory, a decades old graduate level study of law and racial
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inequality which some people can make white students feel guilt. >> we should be teaching american pride, not to hate each other. >> reporter: but critical race theory was never taught by dr. whitfield or anyone else at the school. some students have staged protests and walk-outs. >> they fired the best principal any of us have ever had in our entire life. >> reporter: state senator brian hughes is the author of senate bill 3, the second anti-crt law built in texas. >> one race is inherently superior or inferior or that one sex is inherently inferior or superior. we're not going to push that on grades k through 12 in texas. >> reporter: you don't think any of this has gone off the rails. >> i think folks need to focus on what's in the bill or not what's in other states or what they have heard or things like that. >> reporter: the school district said he violated policies and they proposed the nonrenewal of
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dr. whitfield's contract. the school district says what's happened to you has nothing to do with critical race theory. has this all been a misunderstanding? >> so it is interesting that they would say that. promoted me twice in the last three years. what's changed? >> reporter: every morning whitfield takes his nine-year-old son landon to school. it is across the street from where just a few weeks ago he was a principal. >> it is almost defeating driving back home. it feels like i'm missing out or doing what i have been called to do. >> these debates over how to teach america's history go back more than 150 years. next, one of the producers of "krifr war" tells me why the documentary is crucial piece of that legislation. first, here is a look at what's ahead tonight. >> at 9:00 eastern, maryland senator ben cardin joins me
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no one on the civilian side of the confederate presidency was ever forced to concede and repudiate what they believed, and we allowed a group of people that waived to insurrection against the government to build statues to their heroes. so that has kept it alive. we have never solved the core member of the civil war. >> that's a clip from "civil war" premiering tonight 10:00 p.m. eastern on msnbc. now race, geography and time combined to color the stories americaning tell themselves and others about slavery and the war that helps end it. as confederate statues come down and congress investigating a new
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insurrection against our government, having a real conversation about one of the most painful eras in american history is more important now than ever. one of the producers of "civil war" joins me now. i am so excited to get home to watch this film. the subject in the clip we just played said we have never solved the core problem of this civil war. in producing this project, what did you discover about what those core issues are that we are still dealing with today? >> i'd say our biggest core issues are that we are afraid to confront our past, and it is one of the biggest problems that we have in dealing with issues around race and race theory now. until we understand what happened with the civil war, where we came from, how all this started, we can't find our way to a future of some sort of harmony or equality. and we are not comfortable addressing it as a nation. >> i want to play another clip.
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it is from a community gathering to discuss race relations in chattanooga, tennessee. take a listen. >> since the '60s, i have been proving myself. and there comes life when you s done. i know i'm okay. so the way i look at it is your loss. i don't intend to spend all of my life proving to white people that i'm okay. >> she is not alone in that sentiment. >> no, she was not. and it is something that i think has bubbled up in our schools and a lot of discussions, which is that we don't understand each other. we don't talk to each other. and we work with a lot of preconceived notions in this country about what the other is like but we don't really sit down and meet people where they
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are, talk to each other, try and understand each other. and it creates a lot of the divisions that we have now. >> the two clips i've shown, people who seem to be pretty comfortable sharing their opinions, their perspective, but there were a lot of people in this film, mostly in the south, of all races who seem uncomfortable talking about the civil war and the events surrounding it all these years later. why do you think that is? what drives that discomfort? >> it is interesting. i grew up in the south mississippi and one thing i learned early on if people referred to the war it wasn't the world wars but the civil war. i think one of the most difficult things is the confederacy lost badly in that war. it was painful. people lost family members. people were ruined. it was a painful, painful time. so to look back at that history and all of that suffering meant
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a lot of southerners had to go through and realize that what this war was fought over is something that is so difficult for us to digest, to understand that it was about slavery is really just too much for some people. >> one of the things i find most interesting about the film is how it explores how beliefs are passed down through generations. i want you to talk just a little bit about how that relates to the debates we're seeing about what is being taught in schools today, specifically critical race theory as a sort of catch all or buzz word for anything around diversity, equity, and inclusion. >> what i find most interesting about the discussion around critical race theory is that most people who are using as you say the three buzz words -- >> using it incorrectly. >> -- exactly. don't really know what it is. it is the idea that our history
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has fueled a lot of the problems and issues that we see today that some of the systemic issues we created long ago affect who we are, how we police, and how we govern today. there's a lot of fear. really it's about fear of feeling guilty, for white people, having your children feel guilty. one of the things also very interesting to me in seeing what is going on in classrooms is that young people are far more open to talking about these things. they have a lot more empathy for each other and they want to understand. they don't want to see their friend hurt. they don't want to hurt their friend. and they are less hesitant than the adults around them to discuss what things were and how they were and look at how we can use that informing to move forward. >> that sort of answers my next question which is is this really
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about institutions and the way they teach this or something culturally in society that has to happen at home? >> we need a cultural reckoning point blank bottom line. we have to address our past. if we don't, we can't move forward. and there is something in particular about the civil war, the history of slavery, and about the myths that we created around it, that is really difficult for people to reckon with. there's a lot of guilt. and inability to say, this was wrong. and now we're going to look at how we move things more toward right. >> thank you so much for your time for our audience be sure to watch the premier of the documentary "civil war" tonight 10:00 p.m. eastern right here on msnbc. 0 p.m. eastern right heren msnbc.
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apple's new digital music player ipod can down load 1,000 compact disc quality songs on to its five gigabyte hard drive in less than ten minutes. how we listen to music skyrocketed from there. three years later the ipod mini in 2004. it was smaller about the size of a business card and half an inch thick and even had them in different colors. the color you chose said something about you. then the tinier ipod shuffle was debuted. my mom is still hoping they will bring that product back. these photos are from 2007 and this looks very similar to what we all have our entire life on now. most of us don't use ipods anymore because we have smart phones and liz eb to our music on the same device we e-mail and bank on and do everything else with. i will admit i am nostalgic for the days when my entire life wasn't on one device and i could listen to the sweet sounds of atlantis and destiny's child on
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the go without the temptation of being sucked into the other distraction a phone tempts us with. happy 20th, ipod. maybe like bootleg jeans and center parts the zoomers will bring you back. that is all the time i have for today. i will see you back here next weekend 6:00 p.m. eastern for more "american voices." now i hand it over to mehdi hasan. mehdi, i want to know what was on your ipod in 2000 >> i had a feeling you'd ask me that and i'm pleading the fifth and taking it to my grave. what are you talking about? i love the idea of always being on the twitter and not an ipod. i love the distractions. i am aducted. >> this is what distinguishes you and me. thank you so much. >> who needs music when you have twitter? see you later. go listen to something cool while i tweet and do a tv show. tonight on the mehdi hasan show, the qanon crazies take las vegas but they're also taking over the republican

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